


Trust

by Mad_Maudlin



Category: Merlin - Fandom
Genre: D/s, M/M, Magic, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-23
Updated: 2010-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-06 14:57:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Maudlin/pseuds/Mad_Maudlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur covers for Merlin for once, and Merlin discovers something he didn't even know he wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust

_Vampires._ Merlin wants to say it. He wants to shout it from the towers and paint it on the walls and most of all he wants to get up in Uther's face and scream it. _It was vampires! We just saved the kingdom again! VAMPIRES VAMPIRES VAMPIRES._

But this was Camelot, and you just don't say things like that, most especially not to the king. Arthur himself had pointed out that when Uther scented magic there was no controlling where his rage might fall; better to handle the mess themselves, quietly, and make up a story later on to fit the facts.

Only they hadn't realized how much fire there was going to be, or how much blood, or how many members of the diplomatic delegation from Rheged. They hadn't been ready, or at least Merlin hadn't, when a dozen angry knights found them drenched and gory among several small heaps of greasy ashes. There was fire and water and blood and garlic and several small rocks and Uther asked and Arthur said--

"You should've said it was me," Merlin told Arthur about a million times in the interim. "You should've told him--something."

"Don't be stupid, Merlin, he'd have executed _you_ even if we didn't say--the truth." Arthur was absently braiding some of the straw from his cell floor and looked completely at peace with his decision. "Unless he finds a spare crown prince hidden in a cupboard somewhere, he can't really touch me, can he?"

"There are plenty of punishments that wouldn't kill you," Merlin said.

Arthur shook his head. "He'll do the bare minimum necessary to satisfy Prince Ywain and when the Rhegedians go home he'll pretend it never happened. It'll turn out all right in the end, I promise."

Which is how Merlin ends up standing behind Gaius--well behind, and under threat of gagging--to watch Arthur be whipped.

"...truly sorry for the loss of your men," Uther is saying, and Prince Ywain looks like he had a mouth full of brine but isn't raising a scene. Arthur stands between them, with his back straight but his head bowed. He looks--wrong, somehow. So calm and still. _Patient._ To Merlin's knowledge, Arthur has never been patient about anything in his life ever, and it's strange to see him doing it now. It's sort of...vulnerable.

"The punish, as we have agreed, will be fifteen lashes," Uther continues, and somebody passes him the whip--lighter than they usually use, Merlin notes with some relief. Ywain reaches for it, but Uther doesn't hand it on. "I asked you here only to witness the punishment, that you might be satisfied. My son has embarrassed me as much as he has wronged you, and I will handle his punishment myself."

Merlin grinds his teeth, but Gaius nudges him with an elbow. "Ywain would skin him alive," he hisses. "Uther will use a lighter hand, and spare him much pain."

Merlin wishes he believed that.

Arthur, apparently, does believe it; he is perfectly calm as he removes his shirt and hands it off to someone. Merlin will probably have to track it down later, somewhere in the laundry, but for now all he can see is Arthur's back, straight and white and dusted with freckles. Then he turns around, showing his broad chest, and his nipples are hard little points in the cool air of the hall. He kneels, still calm, still so damn patient--someone sets up a pole for him and Arthur grabs the straps and bows his head and it's a moment of such perfect trust that Merlin can't look away.

Then Uther shakes out the whip and lets fly with the first blow.

From an angle, Merlin can't really see what happens, whether that first stroke barely touches or splits the skin to the bone. What he can see is how Arthur reacts, because something had to break that calm eventually, and the first shock of pain must do it. Arthur's mouth falls open and he screws his eyes shut, rocking forward with the blow, gasping from it. Merlin finds himself gasping, too, but it's not the sympathetic pain he thought he'd feel in this moment. Not exactly.

The whip cracks again, and Arthur is fucking _beautiful._

Merlin feels sick to his stomach for thinking it, but--five strokes in an Uther pauses, to rest either his son or his arm. Arthur is sheened with sweat and trembling, his skin is enticingly flushed. His arms and legs are trembling slightly, but he stays braced on the pole, panting like he's run for miles. His tongue darts out of his mouth to wet his lips, and it's sensuous, obscene--and he's letting Uther do this, he's submitting to this, _he wanted this._ Merlin knows that's not exactly true, but once the thought crosses his mind he can't seem to escape it. Arthur wanted to do this. He is letting someone do this. Perfect trust.

The whip cracks again.

Arthur never screams, but on the last few strokes he lets out little grunts, or groans, or Merlin doesn't know what to call them. The sweat is dripping from him at that point, and his mouth hangs open for great gulping breaths, and Merlin kind of wants to crawl through the floor (or at least re-position the bag he's carrying for Gaius to cover his trousers). He knows that Arthur's in terrible pain, that Arthur did this to protect him, and yet he can't stop himself from looking at his mouth and his chest and his quivering thighs and thinking awful thoughts. Like how beautiful Arthur is right now. How much Merlin wants to kiss his red, gasping mouth and lick the sweat from his chest and touch him all over. Merlin wants, he wants; he wants Arthur to trust _him_ like this.

And then it's over. Uther sets the whip aside and bends down to whisper something in Arthur's ear; servants take away the whipping post and then Gaius and Merlin are allowed to approach and keep Arthur from tipping over entirely. The problem in Merlin's trousers goes away entirely when he gets a good look at Arthur's back; maybe Uther did use a light hand, but a whipping is a whipping and there are thick, dark stripes all over Arthur's fair skin; some oozing blood in places, a few spots bleeding freely. Merlin's hit full-force by nauseating guilt that he felt any pleasure watching Arthur receive this, but it doesn't stop him from opening the bag and passing Gaius everything he requests: a clean cloth and a certain decoction, a pasty salve, and finally a little crystal bottle of tincture of valerian, which makes Arthur shake his head when they press it to his lips.

"No," he mutters thickly; he's probably on the verge of passing out anyway.

"Just one drop," Merlin urges, while Gaius hastily wipes at the worst wounds.

"They're watching," Arthur says, and Merlin doesn't know who he means, exactly--the knights or the king or the Rhegedians or all of them--but he understands, with sudden, piercing clarity, that a lot of people are watching; they all got to see Arthur like this, so trusting and so wrecked, and there's a moment of sick twisting jealousy when Merlin very nearly turns them both invisible out of spite. Instead he puts the valerian in his pocket and helps Gaius spread a clean blanket over Arthur's shoulders, a different sort of armor against all of the eyes in the room.

They get Arthur up to his room--Merlin wanted to bring a stretcher, until Gaius reminded him this was _Arthur_\--they each sling one of Arthur's arms over their shoulders for show and Arthur, for his part, manages not to pass out until they're clear of the hall. Gaius carefully cleans the wounds with boiled wine and lays on what Merlin thinks of as the Itchiest Poultice in the World, but no bandages, not at the moment. "As long as they're kept clean, the air will do them good," Gaius says, and then he leaves the room and it's just Merlin and Arthur.

Arthur lays on his stomach, with his face turned into the pillow, the flush totally gone so that now he's a little too pale. And even the ruin of his back can't keep certain thoughts out of Merlin's head--_he submitted to it, he wanted it, shaking and groaning and red_\--so Merlin flees, down to the laundry, and leaves the bottle of valerian on the bedside table.

(In between fetching back Arthur's shirt and ordering him a light dinner, Merlin wanks in a cupboard, rough and fast and thinking of Arthur on his knees. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't help, and he has to magic the stain out of the shirt.)

When he gets back to the room, Arthur is sitting up, with his elbows braced on his knees and the valerian bottle open in his hands. He glances up and actually gives a little nod to see the food. "And here I was beginning to think you were _completely_ inept, leaving your wounded master to starve in bed with naught but this filthy medicine."

The words make Merlin angry somehow, low inside; it feels like a wall going up, a shield raised in defense, only Merlin's seen what's behind it already so there really isn't any point. He wants snappy bitchy annoying Arthur, yeah--Arthur his friend, Arthur who's already sort of his king--but Merlin wants the Arthur on his knees, now, too. Merlin wants both of them. He _wants._ God, he's a sick bastard.

"Gaius says you need rest," Merlin says, and maybe thumps the tray a little too hard on the table. Some of the soup spills.

Arthur frowns a little, but says, "No, what I need is something better than valerian--you know it makes my stomach hurt." And then, more softly, "And you need to quit being angry with me. It's over and done with."

"I'm not angry," Merlin says, and takes the valerian away. The price of Arthur knowing about his magic is Arthur asking him to do use it, and sometimes it's vampires and sometimes it's fixing a broken shoelace and Merlin is still trying to find the boundary in between. But he can't say no to this--angry or sick or whatever he is. "Go on, then, turn around."

And Arthur turns. Arthur stretches out on his stomach, sideways on the bed, and folds his arms under his head. He moves slow and careful, with little grunts and hisses on account of the pain, but he doesn't hesitate to follow Merlin's instructions.

He wants this. He's submitting to this.

Merlin lets out a shaky breath.

He climbs onto the bed next to Arthur and stretches out his hands. Gaius will know if Merlin actually heals the wounds, but taking away pain--that's simple, that's one of the first things he ever learned to do. He doesn't even have to touch, just pass his hand over every welt let the warm golden light fall down like snow. Maybe Uther had been careful--very few of the lashes overlap at all, and they're not deep, not nearly as bad as they could be. They're scabby and red and surrounded by rivers of bruises, but they're not deep enough to scar, and--

Under Merlin's hand, Arthur lets out a long, low moan, completely shattering Merlin's line of thought. The magic doesn't stop, but Merlin's hand trembles, and he thinks of all the things he could do, of all the things Arthur might let him do, because Arthur trusts him and submits to him and maybe, just maybe--

"Merlin?" Arthur's looked up with confused and sleepy eyes, with a warm flush on his face and that red, red mouth. "What's the matter with you? You're breathing funny and--"

Merlin can't stop himself this time, can barely keep himself from grabbing at the wounds he just enchanted. They're alone now, and there's no one else to see Arthur like this, no one to see Merlin swoop down and cover his mouth with a kiss. It's a terrible angle and hard to find his lips and it turns out they both have teeth, but Merlin figures if he's suddenly become a depraved sex pervert he might as well enjoy himself, and in the next moment Arthur makes it all better by pushing himself up halfway and kissing back.

It's good but it's not enough, can't be enough when Arthur's back looks like mincemeat, and that thought once again brings Merlin to his sense. He pulls back and says "I'm sorry--" and the same moment Arthur starts to say "No, don't--"

And they look at each other.

"Stop," Arthur finishes weakly, mouth hanging open, face flushed. "Don't stop," he clarifies.

"The magic?" Merlin asks.

Arthur swallows. "Any of it."

_He wants this. He chooses this._

Merlin traces his hand along Arthur's back one last time, numbing the pain. "Do you trust me?" he asks, suddenly aware of how heavy a question that is.

Arthur gives a hoarse little laugh. "That," he says, "is an utterly absurd question to be asking _now."_ And maybe he sees something in Merlin's face, something that tells him what this really means, because he adds, "I trust you, Merlin, god, yes, I trust you--you could tear this castle down and kill us all with your brain and still I trust you--"

That's all he needs. Merlin whistles up a wind, a cushion of light and magic, and rolls Arthur onto it to keep his back off the sheets. Arthur gasps and groans, the same noises he made while he was being flogged but now Merlin is sure there's no pain in them, only pleasure and surprise. Merlin crawls on top of him and kisses him properly, then, feeling every part of him, soft skin and hard muscles. Now Merlin can bite the tendons that stood out in Arthur's neck with every stroke of the whip, can lick the sweat from his collarbone and twist his nipples and Arthur takes it, Arthur wants it, Arthur grabs Merlin's arse with both hands and ruts up against him and makes those wonderful noises.

Somehow levitating them both two inches above the bed is easy, but getting their trousers down is hard; Merlin manages, though, and Arthur kicks his free so he's entirely naked under Merlin's hands. Merlin just peels his down far enough to feel Arthur's hands on his bare arse, Arthur's skin on his cock, and then it's all grabbing and grinding and clumsy sloppy kisses, and god, he had no idea he wanted this from Arthur until now, and now he isn't sure he can live without it.

When he comes, he feels it all the way down in his fucking toes, it's so good, and he keeps pulling feverishly at Arthur until Arthur makes one of those noises, the good deep long ones, and spills himself as well. They slump together, and while Merlin thinks some his bones may have melted he's got brains enough to roll them over so Arthur is on top, cradled against his chest, and he can let them both sink back into the blankets.

Arthur tilts his head up to look at Merlin with one eye, so languid and lazy that even his usual smirk doesn't seem quite so prickly. "So apparently I should get whipped more often," he says. "If it inspires this sort of reaction."

"Yeah," Merlin thinks, and wonders if Arthur will realize he's not joking. "Maybe you should."


End file.
